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Inflation Timeline

|< < Prev #3223 (March 23, 2026)

Title text: Depending what corners of the internet you hang out on, 'regular' may at times awkwardly coexist with 'sexy.'

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Explanation

Cosmic inflation is the theory that the very early universe briefly expanded at an enormous rate. This explains the "clumpiness" of the early universe, which is necessary to explain the formation of large-scale structures (e.g., galaxies, galaxy clusters, galaxy filaments, etc.) as the universe evolved. "Regular" inflation refers to the economic process in which the average price of goods and services increases over time. This is usually gradual, but can be very rapid during times of economic distress.

The comic puts both of these on the same timeline of the universe. Cosmic inflation occurred very shortly (~10^-34 s) after the Big Bang. Regular inflation occurs only during the time of human society after money started being used, perhaps 7,000 years ago. Because of the logarithmic scale of the graph, the cosmic inflation period, which is only a tiny fraction of a second, looks much larger than regular inflation, which has existed for at least a few thousand years. This misinterpretation is likely Randall's intention in the comic, along with conflating two wildly different kinds of "inflation".

The title text refers to a third meaning, that of body inflation as a sexual fetish or kink, which has no direct relationship to cosmology or economics.^{[citation needed]} Randall points out that body inflation happens at the same time as economic inflation, presumably because both arise from human activities. The suggestion that this coexistence may be "awkward" perhaps implies that people are paying to indulge in the fetish, and that those prices are subject to economic inflation. The "inflation" might also refer to something akin to a blow-up doll.

Another comic illustrating cosmic inflation is 2240.

Trivia

Assuming regular inflation started with the first use of money 7,000 years ago, the "regular inflation" bar, if accurately displayed, would go from 10^17.63856460 to 10^17.63856482 seconds, with a difference in the exponents of 0.00000022. Depending on your display resolution, this would make the graph's "regular" bar on the order of a millionth of a pixel wide.

Transcript

[Caption:] Timeline of Inflation

[A log-scale timeline labeled "Age of the Universe (seconds)" ranging from 10^-40 to about 10²⁵, with labeled tick marks at 10^-40, 10^-30, ..., 10²⁰ s. A bar labeled "Cosmic" begins off-panel to the left and continues up to roughly 10^-33 seconds. A second, much thinner bar labeled "Regular" covers another period between roughly 10^16.9 and 10^17.3 seconds.]

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